


Stronger Than The Grave

by FlirtyFroggy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, I've tagged joe/nicky because the relationship's there and it's important, Mental Health Issues, POV Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, but this is mostly about joe and death, death of a child, i think, it's less grim than it sounds, tbh I've lost all perspective on how grim this fic actually is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:21:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28050828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: Exhausted, Joe falls to his knees. Beside him Keane, strong and cruel and alive only moments ago, is finally still. These are the worst. The ones that may be necessary but are also born of fury and retribution and the terrible clawing fear that tears at Joe from the inside out.Joe's had a long life. It's rarely been easy.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 21
Kudos: 108





	Stronger Than The Grave

**Author's Note:**

> My brain decided to spend the weekend doing this instead of, you know, _any of the things_ it should be doing. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Title is from Song of Solomon.

The first time he sees someone die, Yusuf is eight years old. A neighbour’s cousin, older than him, around often enough that they had joined in the same games a few times but not enough that Yusuf knows his name. A group of the older boys racing down the street, pushing and laughing, until one stumbles and falls into the path of an oncoming cart. It isn’t coming fast and he should be fine, but he hits his head on the way down. Right here, Yusuf’s brother tells him later, pressing gently at the tender part of his head near his eye. Hit there hard enough and you’ll die. His friends laugh at first, some of them, until they realise he’s not moving. There’s blood on his cheek and his eyes are closed. Yusuf can see it from across the street where he’s pressed to the wall in fascinated horror. His friends gather round him, and then there’s more pushing but no laughing, and someone runs for help. Yusuf’s heart is too fast in his chest and he thinks he might be sick. His hands are trembling.

It was so quick. A moment. He was running and laughing, and then he was falling, and then he was still.

Yusuf’s neighbour appears, the boy’s aunt, followed by another woman Yusuf thinks is his mother, and a cluster of concerned-looking friends.

It’s their screams he remembers, years later, and the way they held him.

~~

The first time he kills someone, Yusuf isn’t really sure he has. He’s accompanying his father to Kairouan for the first time when they are attacked on the road. He never really wanted to learn to fight but his parents wouldn’t allow him to travel if he wasn’t able to defend himself. So, he learned and hoped he’d somehow never have to actually do it.

The whole thing goes by in a blur of running and shouting and his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. A slide of steel on steel, a burning pain in his arm. He connects with _something_ and he’s spinning around, disoriented, or the world’s spinning around him, and then he’s sitting on the ground somehow, the edge of his sword red with blood. It all happened impossibly quickly.

He did well, his father says as he bandages the cut on his arm. Not deep but it hurts and it will limit his movement for a time. It was them or us, his uncle says, and he’d rather it was them. Some of the men who attacked them lie dead nearby, others ran away. Yusuf doesn’t know who the blood on his sword belongs to.

He leans forward, careful to avoid anyone living or dead, and vomits into the grass. His father puts his arm around his shoulder and holds him until he’s finished shaking.

~~

The first time he kills someone in battle, Yusuf almost dies himself. It’s louder than anything Yusuf ever imagined; the shouts and screams of thousands of men, the clash and scrape of thousands of swords, hundreds of horses bellowing and stamping. Barely discernible under the rest, the swish and thunk of arrow after arrow, bolt after bolt. There’s dust everywhere, so much fucking dust churned up by the mass of feet and hooves, stinging his eyes and choking his throat. He fends off one invader, then another and another. Some of them he injures, some of them he doesn’t. Some of them are perhaps the same person. He can’t tell and it doesn’t really matter. Another appears in front of him. He holds his sword like he knows what he’s doing, and swings it like he doesn’t. Yusuf remembers being like him — scarcely a man, knowing what to do in theory but the reality is horribly different. 

The invader apparently remembers what he’s doing here and how to do it and almost makes it past Yusuf’s defences. Yusuf deflects the strike and goes for his own, quick and clean into the neck, and turns away before the Frank has finished falling. Later, he will look back and note how young he seemed and wonder who could possibly have thought it was a good idea to send one so young to do such a terrible thing. Wonder if they miss him. But there’s no time for that now. There are more of them, more of them, always more of them. An endless flood of Franks trying to— what? Yusuf doesn’t even know what they think they’re trying to achieve here. 

Something whips past him, tugging at his beard. The man beside him screams and collapses and Yusuf realises it was a crossbow bolt. A breath closer and it would have hit him in the jaw. A slow, painful death.

There isn’t time to think on it as he twists to deflect a blade arcing towards him. He fights and he fights and he fights, and there are always more and more and more.

~~

The first time he dies, Yusuf is almost relieved. He’s terrified too, and furious, as he thinks of home and his family, his parents waiting for news of a son who will never return. His life is being stolen by these cursed invaders and he can’t say he’s happy about that. But at least it’s over. This battle that feels like it will go on forever. He’ll die here at some point, it may as well be now as later. So he feels a kind of strange gratitude towards the wild-eyed Frank who is currently trying to yank free his sword from where it’s stuck in Yusuf’s chest. Yusuf laughs at the absurdity, coughing up blood. The Frank looks at him incredulously and Yusuf jams his knife up into the soft tissue beneath his jaw.

If he’s going he’s at least taking one of these bastards with him.

~~

The first time he wakes from death, Yusuf blinks away the dust and sees a pink sky. I should be praying, he thinks muzzily, before remembering. He sits upright and feels at the place in his chest that had definitely had a sword in it the last time he had checked. There’s nothing there, not even a mark. 

Everything is white for a moment and there’s a roaring in his head that isn’t the battle. He wonders for a moment if this is Jahannam but he knows in his bones that it's not. The blood, the dirt, the noise. He's right where he was. He gets to his feet, because what else can he do?

The Frank who killed him — because he had _definitely_ died, he is sure about that — is lying nearby, empty eyes staring up at a sky they won’t ever see again. Yusuf knows it’s him because he has Yusuf’s knife in his hand. He must have pulled it from his neck and bled out.

Yusuf crouches to retrieve his knife and the Frank takes a rattling breath. Yusuf jumps back, stumbling, his heart racing so fast he might die again. The Frank turns his head, eyes no longer empty. A sea in storm, Yusuf will think much later, in one of his more poetic moods. But now he just sees his own confusion reflected back at him, his own fear, his own death.

~~

The first time he kills in anger, something tears inside Yusuf that he’s not sure can be healed. He’s been angry when he’s killed but never, not even in the endless nightmare of the siege, has it been the _reason_ for killing. Every life he has ever taken has been necessary, for himself or for others.

He has been with Nicolò, the Frank he killed, who killed him, for fourteen days. The moon was a waning crescent when they left al-Quds and now it is almost full. 

Some time after his third or fourth death Yusuf had stopped feeling anything at all, and had continued on in the same way ever since. If things are the same for Nicolò, Yusuf can’t tell and he doesn’t much care.

They manage some rudimentary communication based on their native tongues and the smattering of Greek they share. Simple things, the bare essentials. Food. Water. Sleep. Fire. Sword. Danger. Fight. Beyond that they are largely silent. 

The sun is still low in the sky and Nicolò is packing away the stolen cloak he uses as a blanket, when something inside Yusuf snaps. Between one breath and the next everything rushes in and he isn’t numb any more. He is furious. He doesn’t think he speaks, but he must do something because Nicolò looks up sharply. His sword is right beside him but he’s too slow, Yusuf is too close, and he’s barely drawn it before Yusuf lashes out with the knife he didn’t even realise was in his hand. Fourteen days of rage crammed into one single swipe of the blade and Nicolò’s life is pouring hot and red over Yusuf’s hand. He slumps to the ground, choking, the light fading quickly from his ever-alert eyes. Yusuf slumps beside him.

The knife was sharp and the cut was vicious. The wound is deep, windpipe and tendons sliced clean through. But he’s done worse. When he had to. And it doesn’t matter _why_ he did it anyway because Nicolò is going to be fine. It’s hardly the first time he’s killed him.

He stares at the ruin of Nicolò’s neck and he weeps.

He’s still crying when Nicolò wakes. His neck isn’t fully healed and he gurgles, coughs up blood. He sits up, hesitant, moves towards Yusuf as though to touch. Yusuf waves him away and Nicolò moves back, giving Yusuf his space. Yusuf sobs harder.

Eventually he quiets and Nicolò offers him a waterskin. It’s clumsy in his hands and he spills water they can’t afford to lose, so Nicolò holds it to his lips. His hands are gentle and his usually stern face is tinged with concern. The blood covering his chest and neck is obscene. New sobs well up from the pit of Yusuf’s stomach.

He cries and quiets, cries and quiets. Every so often Nicolò coaxes some water or food into him. He’s hazily aware of Nicolò doing things around their camp, moving in and out of Yusuf’s line of sight. At one point he’s gone for quite a while, before reappearing with something small and furry that he skins and cooks over a fire that Yusuf doesn’t recall him building.

Eventually, he sleeps.

When he wakes it is night. At some point either he moved or the fire did because he’s closer to it than he was. The moon is enormous overhead, round and just past full. He feels empty, drained, which is not much of an improvement on the numbness or the rage. Nicolò sits nearby, staring into the flames, and he looks up when Yusuf moves. The combination of firelight and moonlight does strange things to his colouring and he looks grey and drawn, the shadows under his eyes dark as bruises. When Yusuf finally meets Nicolò’s eyes they are glassy and a little bloodshot. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Something drops in Yusuf’s stomach. He looks back up at the moon. Just past full. It’s been days. He’s lost _days_. He clenches his hands into fists and thinks about the air filling his lungs until he isn’t thinking about anything else.

“Yusuf?”

“I’m sorry,” Yusuf says in Arabic. Nicolò tilts his head in a question. They haven’t done that one yet. He shakes his head. He’s not going to attempt to explain it now. He doesn't think he was even really saying it to Nicolò. Perhaps he was saying it to his mother, who had always worried so much about him and his father when they travelled, who had never been quite settled until they returned, who would never see her son again. Perhaps he was saying it to the people of al-Quds that he couldn’t save, who he had abandoned to their fate so he could leave with one of the very people who had come to destroy them. Perhaps he was saying it to the boy he once was, standing horrified in the street, or to the adolescent who didn’t want to learn to fight, who could not have imagined what he would become. Perhaps he was saying it to God. He realises suddenly that he can’t remember the last time he prayed. He is in no state to do so now. He isn’t sure he ever will be again. 

He can’t say any of this to Nicolò, even if he wanted to. “Sleep,” he says at last.

Nicolò looks like he wants to argue, and also like the matter will be moot very soon as he will be asleep whether he wants to be or not. He nods and lays down, and his breathing quickly evens out. Yusuf can’t stand to look at him. He watches the shadows instead as the moon moves slowly across the sky and down towards the horizon.

~~

The first time Nicolò dies by the hand of someone other than him, Yusuf is filled with a terror he has never felt, never imagined. He grabs Nicolò’s sword, the nearest weapon to hand, and drives it into Nicolò’s killer, under the armour and up, through the lung and into the heart. Then he’s falling to his knees beside Nicolò’s unmoving body, hands scrabbling across his chest and shoulders. “Please,” he begs, unsure who he’s begging. “Please, please, please.” There is no reason for this panic, no reason to believe Nicolò won’t come back. But he’s terrified. His hands shake as he touches Nicolò’s face and his words catch in his throat until he can’t speak them. Don’t go. Don’t leave me here alone. Don’t leave me. Please. I can’t do this without you.

Nicolò’s eyes open and the gash on his head seals itself up. He fumbles for the hand Yusuf has on his cheek, grips it until it stops shaking. Says something in Ligurian that Yusuf can’t understand. Smiles.

~~

The first time he walks out on Nicolò, Yusuf doesn’t really mean to do it. They argue in the morning, over something stupid Yusuf has forgotten before he’s reached the end of the street. He doesn’t go back though. He doesn’t go back and he doesn’t go to the merchant they’ve been working for, helping to repair the roof. He walks and he keeps walking, letting his feet take him where they want. He ends up at the docks and watches the ships come and go. He idly thinks about getting on one. He won’t, he knows it even as he thinks it. Doesn’t want to. But the thought is there.

Nicolò finds him as the moon is coming up, a slim crescent barely visible. “Are you alright?” he asks in the measured way that means he’s quietly furious. Yusuf nods, not taking his eyes off the water. They stand side by side and listen to the sea wash against the quay.

Stars have appeared before Nicolò speaks again. “I told Ioannes that you were ill. Then he saw you down here, not being ill. He’s paid me for today but has asked us not to go back. He’ll find someone else.” Yusuf blinks away the tears that prickle his eyes without warning.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“I know.” Nicolò turns to look at him. “Can you tell me?” Yusuf shakes his head. “I know you’ve been having nightmares.”

Al-Quds. A boy on the streets of Mahdia. Some bandit, one of many over the years, who had attacked them and had no chance to regret it. His parents, his brother, whose deaths he had seen only in his imagination. 

Nicolò. Over and over again, bright eyes turned dull.

“Yes.”

“You can’t do this, my heart. You need to talk to me.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Nicolò says, resting his forehead against Yusuf’s. “Just come home.”

~~

The first time they learn that they can die after all, maybe, eventually, some day, Yusuf is surprisingly calm. He thinks on some level he already knew, ever since the day he held Nicolò’s face in shaking hands, ever since the day he woke up on a battlefield under a rose-coloured sky, ever since the day he watched a boy laugh and stumble and fall still. 

It changes nothing and everything.

~~

The first time he stops believing in God, Yusuf barely notices it happening. He’s sitting in the shade of a sycamore tree, idly copying the shadow of its leaves on the ground as the sunlight filters through, when he hears the adhan. And… nothing. He doesn’t ignore the call to prayer because he’s busy or tired or ill or even because he doesn’t want to go. It’s just that there’s simply no point.

He finishes his drawing, twists his mouth in displeasure at the result, and goes back inside the house.

~~

They first time he uses a gun, Yusuf doesn’t like it all. They’ve been around for a while, he’s even been shot with one, but he’s never fired one before. They’re inaccurate, and fiddly, and the smell is unpleasant, but more than that they make him nervous. It’s too easy, killing from a distance. It shouldn’t be easy. It should never be easy.

This is silly, he knows. Cannons are not new. Bows have been around forever. Before that people probably threw stones. But he can’t help it. He doesn’t like guns.

Nico loves it. He’s always preferred being at a distance, where he can take his time and be in control. He’s good with a sword out of necessity rather than choice. And he’s fascinated by the weapon itself, wants to know everything about the firing mechanism and the barrel and the shot. Quỳnh is also intrigued but still prefers her bow. Andromache won’t deign to investigate them.

They decide Nico can be the gun expert.

~~

The first time he sees Andromache fall apart, Joseph is within a hair’s breadth of doing the same himself. But he can’t. He can’t and Nicolas can’t. They have to be as strong for her as she’s always been for them. They have to. They have to. There’s no other choice. He takes a deep breath, as slow as he can.

They wait.

It takes hours but at last she stops. The air is freezing, the water of the Atlantic colder still as the incoming tide splashes their feet. They will need to move soon. 

He sees the moment she truly gives up. One minute her eyes are filled with rage and fear and grief, the next with nothing. Hollow and empty. An awful kind of death.

“Come on, Andromache,” Nicolas says, slipping his arm around her shoulder. It’s the first time she’s allowed it. “We must go.”

They help her up from the cold sand and she complies without protest, letting them take her weight as though she doesn’t have the strength to stand. You can’t fight the ocean, but Andromache has been trying for decades.

His eyes meet Nicolas’ over her head and he sees only his own dread.

~~

The first time he prays again, Yusuf is really just being polite. He bumps into an acquaintance on the street and they end up walking as they talk. It’s only when Ibrahim stops that Yusuf hears the adhan, notices the flow of people all heading in the same direction. He hadn’t even realised today was Friday. Ibrahim raises a questioning eyebrow, and Yusuf hesitates on the steps before following him in.

His stomach feels like a rock in his belly as he washes his hands and feet. The water on his face does little to help the way his cheeks burn but it does slow his breath, just a bit.

He barely listens to the sermon, his thought whirling, his mind a storm that threatens to sweep him away.

He’s afraid he won’t remember what to do, it’s been so long. But his body remembers and takes him through the movements. The shaking in his hands decreases then stops. His breath evens out. His insides return to their normal consistency. He stops thinking. Remembers that peace he used to feel, a long time ago. He doesn’t feel it yet but it’s there, waiting for him.

He says goodbye to Ibrahim outside and walks home, quiet, letting his thoughts wander. Nico glances up and smiles when he comes in, then smiles wider when he looks at him properly. He walks over, kisses him softly, gives him a questioning look.

“Bumped into Ibrahim. Went to the mosque,” he says casually, like he does it every week.

Nico smiles again, presses a kiss to his forehead. “Feeling better?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Good.”

~~

The first time he feels another person die, Joseph is wrapped around Nicolas, safe and warm. Then there is ice on his cheeks, a rope around his neck, and nothing beneath his feet. His lungs burn and scream.

He wakes gasping for breath, Nicolas beside him doing the same. Across the room Andrea sits up, rubbing her neck. “A new one,” she explains.

When they find Sebastien, there’s a look in his eyes that Joseph’s all too familiar with. He tells him it’s going to be alright, he tells him he’s not alone, he tells him they understand.

Many, many years later, he will wonder if he ever understood anything at all.

~~

The first time he sees men die from mustard gas, Joe is about as close to giving up as he’s ever been. All these centuries of human endeavour, human development, human progress. For this? Why?

He looks for Nicky, panics when he can’t find him. Then he sees him, only a few paces away but it might as well be miles in this quagmire. He’s trying to help a young private, no older than seventeen, get through this swamp the British have the nerve to call a battlefield. Trying to get away from the gas. There’s no warning at all before the spray of bullets tears through them. Joe throws himself forward, for all the good it does, his stomach trying to crawl up through his chest. He’s barely moved and Nicky’s already stirring. Nicky gets up. The boy doesn’t.

Joe can’t help but think he was right about guns.

~~

The first time Nile sees what he’s capable of, Joe is running on fumes. Booker gave them up and Andy’s dying; he still has Nicky’s blood on his jeans. He just wants to get out of here, lie down somewhere soft and warm and hold Nicky in his arms. But they’re not done yet. Merrick wants them back in the lab and Joe won’t go back there, not for anything. They’re not done yet.

Exhausted, Joe falls to his knees. Beside him Keane, strong and cruel and _alive_ only moments ago, is finally still. These are the worst. The ones that may be necessary but are also born of fury and retribution and the terrible clawing fear that tears at Joe from the inside out.

And they’re still not done.

They’ll never be done.

~~

The first time he sees what Nile calls ‘Copley’s Wall of Crazy’, Joe can’t help but be reluctantly impressed. “Mr Copley’s attention to detail,” Nicky murmurs in his ear.

“I’ll shove his attention to detail up his ass,” Joe whispers back. 

Still. It’s good. He should probably be worried that they’ve left such a trail of evidence behind them, despite their efforts. But it’s nice. They _exist_. There’s proof of them in the world. The things they've done. The good they've done.

He glances across at Nicky, who is looking pleased and completely unsurprised. He’ll be smug later, if he thinks it’s appropriate, if he gauges Joe is in the right mood. There might be an ‘I told you so’ in there, possibly unspoken. Joe has always admired Nicky’s firmness, his certainty. It’s led him astray a time or two, most notably when they met. But it’s the anchor that keeps Joe from drifting away, lost in the storm.

There’s a gleam in Andy’s eyes that Joe hasn’t seen in a very long time, one he’d thought was lost in the ocean. Nile is young and bright and brave and so alive. Booker… isn’t there. But he will be.

They’ll never be done.

But he can live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you think there are any notes or tags I should add.


End file.
